Puccini’s La Boheme

Last night I watched the second in the series of recordings of earlier live-streamed performances of New York Metropolitan Opera productions, this one being the 2008 staging of La Boheme about the lives of poor, young, romantic artists in Paris. Apparently the recent hit Broadway musical Rent was based on this opera. Although it was moving, I did not enjoy it quite as much as I did Carmen the previous day. One thing I noticed was that in this opera, the singers took curtain calls at the end of each act, rather than only at the end of the opera. I thought this odd but maybe it is not unusual for some operas. I had also been under the impression that the audience would shower the female leads with bouquets of flowers at the end but that did not happen in either of these two operas. Maybe that is an opera cliché that is no longer operative or maybe it happens in other countries and not the US.
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A silver lining in yesterday’s gloomy election news

As expected, yesterday was not a good day for Bernie Sanders in the three primaries held in Illinois, Florida, and Arizona (Ohio postponed its primary at the very last minute). There were all kinds of problems due to the confusion about the pandemic, and the absence of poll workers caused some polling stations to close. How this affected the overall turnout is not yet clear.
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We really need to take social distancing seriously

Starting at midnight last night, the ‘shelter in place’ order has been extended to Monterey county where I live due to two cases of Covid-19 being detected here. Since I have been voluntarily doing it already, this will not cause any change for me but it is going to be disruptive and costly for workers who lose their jobs and wages, parents with young children, businesses, and a whole host of others for whom the impact is not yet clear.

As I wrote before, there is something strange about this crisis because even though it is serious on a large scale, for most people things in their immediate surroundings seem so normal. This can cause people to minimize the danger and think it is overblown and thus ignore the recommendations. That would be very unwise. One woman, who describes herself as a “healthy 48 year old with no underlying conditions”, came down with the disease and had to be treated in the emergency room said that after her recovery, she was so irritated by all the comments that she read on various sites dismissing the threat that she decided to describe her “brutal” ordeal in order to let others know what it is really like and warn them not to take things lightly.
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Watching Bizet’s Carmen while ‘sheltering in place’

I am not a fan of opera, having seen only one live performance in my life. It was a long time ago when I was in Germany and we were taken as a group to see Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. My reaction? Kind of meh. But I decided to take advantage of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s decision, during the time when they are shut down due to the pandemic, to broadcast recordings of their past live streams of operas for free with a new one every night. (See this post for details).
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Crises will be exploited by the wealthy and powerful unless we defy them

In this excellent short video below titled Coronavirus Capitalism, Naomi Klein reminds us that past crises such as 9/11, the financial collapse of 2008, and natural disasters are often used by governments to ram through laws and other actions that benefit corporate and oligarchic interests at the expense of the rest of us, taking advantage of the fact that the public is too alarmed to pay close attention to what is going on.

Klein says that these times call for extreme vigilance and mass mobilization to prevent the power structure in the US using the pandemic to provide yet more giveaways to the wealthy, and instead use the moment to enact progressive legislation, as occurred with the New Deal in the 1930s after the Great Depression. She says that victory will go to those who are willing to fight harder.

Primary election chaos in Ohio

Today is primary day in Ohio (in addition to Florida, Arizona, and Illinois). Or is it? Voters in Ohio would be justified in being confused but the answer is that there will definitely not be any voting in that state today.

Yesterday Ohio governor Mike DeWine asked a judge to delay the election to June 2 with early voting to be allowed up until June 1 because of the pandemic but the judge refused. Later last night, DeWine ordered the closing of the polling places anyway creating a legal and constitutional controversy.
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Great moments in capitalism

Two brothers in Tennessee were found to have hoarded over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer. How did they manage to acquire that many, you ask?

[Matt] Colvin and his brother Noah became the subject of national scorn after the New York Times published a story about how they cleaned out stores of sanitizer and wipes in an attempt to profit off the public’s panic over the coronavirus pandemic.
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Noah Colvin, of Hixson took a 1,300-mile road trip in early March across Tennessee and Kentucky, racking up thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer to resell online.

Meanwhile, Matt [described as an Amazon seller, whatever that is-MS] stayed at home, waiting for pallets of antibacterial wipes and even more sanitizer to be shipped, according to a New York Times article.
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The Colvins told the New York Times that Noah Colvin hit “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods. The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need the products more than others, he said to the Times, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand.

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John Oliver on the coronavirus

It turns out that the building that his studio and offices are in has been shut down because some people tested positive for the virus and so he had to tape this week’s show in a different room without an audience. He has good advice for people about what sources of information to trust about the virus and what to do (Infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CDC) and what not to trust (Donald Trump, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh) and not to pass on unverified information on social media. Jane Lytvynenko is maintaining a running link of all the fake stories that are circulating on the internet.
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A boon for opera fans

If you are a fan of opera, New York City’s Metropolitan Opera announced that they will, starting tonight and continuing for the duration of their closure due to the pandemic, live-stream, free of charge some of the recordings they have of past performances, no doubt to keep people entertained while they are restricted to their homes.

Since 2006, the company has been transmitting live performances to movie theaters via satellite as part of a series called The Met: Live in HD; now the Met will be streaming those performances for free, one per day, for the duration of the closure.
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Each opera will be available on the Met’s website beginning at 7:30 p.m. Eastern and will remain available to stream until 3:30 p.m. Eastern the next day. They’ll also be available through the Met’s Opera on Demand apps.

You can see the first week’s offerings here. Tonight will be Bizet’s Carmen.